Texas State University Facilities Safety Committee Bylaws Issue No. 2 Reviewer: Chair, Safety Committee Effective Date: 01/01/2014 (Dec - EY) Review Date: 01/14/2015 01. POLICY STATEMENT 01.01 Texas State University s Facilities Safety Committee is committed to supporting the educational mission of the institution through effective communication of safety policy and to assure the Facilities safety policy and procedures reflect current practices. 01.02 The goal of the Facilities Safety Committee is to prevent occupational injuries and illnesses by involving employees, supervisors, and administrators in identifying hazards and working collaboratively to prevent and/or mitigate them. The Facilities Safety Committee has five objectives: a. Involve employees in achieving a safe, healthy work environment. b. Promptly review the results of Environmental Health, Safety, and Risk Management (EHS&RM) and supervisor investigations of safety-related incidents, injuries, accidents, illnesses and deaths. c. Conduct annual workplace inspections, identify hazards, and recommend methods for eliminating or mitigating the hazards. d. Annually evaluate the Facilities workplace safety and health program and recommend to management improvements to the program. e. Distribute relevant work-related safety information. 02. PROCEDURES FOR DETERMINING COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP 02.01 The Facilities Safety Committee will have a voting representative and alternate representative from each of the Facilities shops/work areas. Employee representatives can volunteer to be on the committee or their colleagues can elect them. Each representative will serve a continuous term of at least three years. Alternate representatives are encouraged to replace the regular shop/work area representative at the end of his/her term of office. In this way, an experienced representative serves continuously on the committee. 02.02 The Facilities Safety Committee will have one chairperson, one vice-chairperson, a shop inspections coordinator, and a recorder per the following: a. Chairperson b. Vice-chairperson c. Shop Inspections Coordinator d. Recorder 02.03 The chair and other committee officers will each serve a three-year term with four months of mentoring from the previous chair/vice-chairperson and officers. The election of officers will occur in September; the term of office will begin in January. There will be no term limits. Chairs may serve consecutive three year terms of office for as long as they continue to be elected by the committee representatives.
02.04 Duties of the committee officers include: a. The duties of the Chairperson (Chair) are as follows: 1. Schedules regular committee meetings. 2. Conducts the committee meetings. 3. Approves committee correspondence and reports. 4. Acts as liaison with Environmental Health, Safety, and Risk Management (EHS&RM) to handle incident reports. 5. Discusses accidents with shop/work area supervisors with an aim to prevent future accidents. b. The duties of the Vice-chairperson (Vice-chair) are as follows: 1. Develops written agenda for conducting meetings. 2. Generates committee meeting sign-in sheets. 3. In the absence of the chair, assumes the duties of the chair. 4. Sends out reminders and previous meeting minutes to the Safety Committee representatives, Associate VP of Facilities, and the Directors. 5. Supervises the preparation of meeting minutes and files an electronic copy. 6. Transmits completed Facilities Safety Concern forms to the Safety Committee Advisor for follow-up action. 7. Tracks attendance of Safety Committee Members. c. Shop Inspections Coordinator 1. Schedules and leads shop inspections. 2. In absence of the chair and vice-chair, assumes the duties of the chair. 3. Performs other duties as directed by the chair. d. Recorder 1. Maintains roster of current Committee officers and members. 2. Records minutes of the monthly Safety Committee Meetings. 3. Maintains historical/archival Committee data in accordance with the University Records Retention Schedule. 4. Files attendance roster electronically in the Facilities Safety Committee sharedrive. 02.05 If the chair leaves office before the term expires, the vice-chair will assume the duties of the chair until an election is held within the next three months. The newly elected officer will serve for the remainder of the term. The same procedure will occur in the event that the vice-chair leaves office before his/her term expires. 02.06 New representatives will receive training in Safety Committee functions, hazard identification, and shop inspection procedures, and additional-duty-safety-officer (ADSO) training. Committee members will attend training offered by the State Office of Risk Management or the Environmental Health, Safety, and Risk Management (EHS&RM) department.
03. ROLE OF THE ROTATIONAL SAFETY COMMITTEE ADVISOR 03.01 The Safety Committee Advisor is an ad hoc member of the Facilities Safety Committee and provides guidance, advice, and support to the committee, enabling them to meet the deliverables per the safety committee bylaws. The advisor will attend the Safety Committee meetings, facilitate agenda achievement, and ensure the committee s concerns are properly addressed within Facilities. As an ad hoc member, the Safety Committee Advisor has no voting privileges on the committee. 03.02 The Safety Committee Advisor is a rotational position filled by Facilities Department Assistant Directors and Managers. The advisor is appointed by the Associate Vice- President of Facilities each December and will serve a one-year term beginning in January. Upon completion of the one-year term, the advisor will provide transitional support to the newly appointed advisor. 04. PROCEDURES FOR CONDUCTING COMMITTEE MEETINGS 04.01 The Facilities Safety Committee will meet the third Wednesday of each month for approximately one hour. Each shop/work area representative will attend regularly scheduled safety committee meetings and participate in other committee activities. Any representative unable to attend the meeting will send the shop alternate in his/her place. An alternate attending the meeting on behalf of a regular representative will be a voting representative for the entire meeting. It is the committee member s responsibility to notify the chair or vice-chair when an emergency, vacation, or sick leave causes him/her to miss a meeting and the alternate is not available either. 04.02 The agenda will prescribe the order in which the Facilities Safety Committee conducts its business. The agenda will also include the following, when applicable: a. Reviews of each new Facilities Safety Concern form submission. b. A review of all workplace accidents, illnesses, or incident reports occurring since the last committee meeting that pertain specifically to Facilities employees. c. Reviews of the Supervisor Post-Accident Reports. d. Provide schedule and status of work area inspections. 04.03 Minutes will be recorded at each committee meeting and approved copies will be distributed to all Facilities Safety Committee representatives who will then post the minutes in their shops/work areas for all employees to read. All recommendations of the committee will be included in the Safety Committee Meeting Minutes. The minutes will also record meeting attendance. The vice-chair will submit an electronic copy of the minutes to the office of the Associate Vice-President of Facilities and Directors. A final copy will be retained for two years, filed in the Facilities Safety Committee share-drive. 04.04 Fifty-one percent or more of the voting representatives constitute a quorum. A majority vote of attending representatives is required to approve all safety committee decisions. The chair-person does not cast a vote unless quorum is evenly split on a
decision. Issues not resolved by a majority vote will be resolved by the chair-person s vote. 05. PROCEDURES FOR EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT 05.01 The Facilities Safety Committee will encourage employees to identify workplace, health, and safety hazards. Concerns raised by employees will be presented to the Safety Committee in writing on the Facilities Safety Concern Form for review at the next scheduled safety committee meeting. 05.02 The committee will review new concerns that directly affect Facilities employees, document findings, and follow-up actions on the Facilities Safety Concern Form. A copy will be forwarded to the Safety Committee Advisor and a second copy will be filed in the Facilities Safety Committee share-drive. 06. PROCEDURES FOR HAZARD ANALYSIS 06.01 The Facilities Safety Committee will review new Supervisor s Reports of Incident, Injury, or Illness at the regularly scheduled monthly meetings. Supervisor s Reports of Incident, Injury, or Illness include work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths. The Safety Committee will determine if preventive controls or procedures are recommended to prevent trending accidents or incidents. 06.02 The Facilities Safety Committee will review each supervisor s Post-Accident Report, which provides documentation of completed follow-up actions. The report will be reviewed at the safety meeting the month after the Supervisor s Reports of Incident, Injury or Illness was initially presented. This review is intended to ensure supervisory follow-up actions are documented, as well as provide a means of sharing lessons learned, once the supervisor has completed his/her investigation. Upon review by the Safety Committee, a copy will be filed in the Facilities Safety Committee share-drive. The supervisor s Post-Accident Report should address the following topics: a. Date of injury b. Shop/Work Area c. Nature of injury d. How and why the incident/injury/illness occurred e. Measures taken to prevent future occurrence 07. PROCEDURES FOR WORKPLACE INSPECTIONS 07.01 The Facilities Safety Committee will conduct annual workplace inspections of all facilities shops and offices. The inspection schedule shall be distributed to affected supervisors and directors at least one week in advance of inspections. Inspections will be conducted by the shop inspections coordinator or his/her designee, the shop safety committee representative, and the shop supervisor or his/her designee. A copy of the completed inspection form will be left with the shop supervisor.
07.02 The shop inspections coordinator will complete a Work Area Inspection Form that documents the location of all health or safety hazards found during inspection. The completed inspection form will recommend options for eliminating or mitigating the hazard(s). Within five working days of receipt of the completed inspection form, a follow-up inspection (if needed) will be conducted to determine whether the deficient shop is working towards compliance with recommendations. When all shop inspections are completed, a copy of each shop inspection will be sent to the Associate Vice-President for Facilities and appropriate Directors. The completed work area inspection forms will be filed in the Facilities Safety Committee sharedrive. 08. PROCEDURES FOR ANNUAL EVALUATION 08.01 The Facilities Safety Committee will review the Texas State University Facilities Safety Committee Bylaws annually in December and make necessary changes. The committee will also use results from hazard analysis, workplace inspection results, and accident trend analysis provided by EHS&RM to evaluate its own activities each December. This evaluation process will enable the committee to develop an action plan for the next calendar year. 09. MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS POLICY Major responsibilities for routine assignments associated with this policy include the following: Positions Section Date Chair, Safety Committee Review December 16 (EY-2013) Advisor, Safety Committee Review December 16 (EY-2013) 08. CERTIFICATION OF POLICY This policy has been approved by the following individuals in their official capacity and represents Texas State Facilities Department Policy and Procedures from the date of this document until suspended. Chair, Safety Committee, Reviewer of this policy Advisor, Safety Committee Chair, Safety Committee Advisor, Safety Committee Associate Vice President, Facilities